It was over when you said you liked Hemingway and Woody Allenat your four-story townhouse in the Village. And I sat therefeeling too broke for delivery Chinese, hating both those men.And why had I bothered to fall for you over time, and notget this conversation out of the way, first date in a dark bar?I guess I was eager to get along and now I stared into the faceof a tidal wave and couldn’t say, Oh, well, I like the idea of surfing.

One dawn we woke, twin beds pushed together.We had dreamt of us on a riverbank,drawing with ink on parchment, a few feet apart,to charm one another by the rising tide.We laid the pages so they could dry.

Why did you bother making an effort, on return from the Cape,saying, Hey I can’t wait to see you? You thoughtyou’d try, you said. You said a lot of things, like,I’m crazy about you, can we stay together?And I said, Okay.

By month three, you heard me say I hate youIn your bed when I hadn’t, and I love you in my bedwhen I hadn’t, and thosestacked the deck against me.

I heard a dumb radio song in month eight and realized my lifewas a dumb new radio song,and we’d broken up ages ago.

The tide must have risen by now.We wake in the dawn for a job, two-faced andcursing the present, and busted in twowe flow ahead.